


Cleared for Takeoff

by dixiehellcat



Series: Tony Stark Bingo Round 4 [16]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Dubious Consent, Getting Together, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29615703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: Jim Rhodes drags himself to a party to ride herd on his underage roommate Tony Stark. What happens that night opens both their eyes.Fills the "Drunk/Drugged Sex" square on my Round 4 Tony Stark Bingo card number 4028. (required info collected below)
Relationships: Tony Stark/James "Rhodey" Rhodes
Series: Tony Stark Bingo Round 4 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009245
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	Cleared for Takeoff

**Author's Note:**

> Bingo specifics!  
> Title: Cleared for Takeoff  
> Author: deehellcat  
> Card Number: 4028  
> Link (AO3, Tumblr, etc.) https://archiveofourown.org/works/29615703  
> Square Filled (Letter AND number AND prompt) K3, drunk/drugged sex  
> Ship/Main Pairing: rhodeytony, aka MIT Boyfriends  
> Rating (Gen, Teen, Mature, Explicit) teen, for a few cuss words, and activities not appropriate for underage geniuses to be engaging in.  
> Major Tags/Warnings/Triggers: Underage Drinking, Dubious Consent, Mutual Pining, James “Rhodey” Rhodes and Tony Stark at MIT, MIT Era, AU—College, Alcohol Abuse, Protective James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Getting Together, Pre-relationship  
> Summary: Jim Rhodes drags himself to a party to ride herd on his underage roommate Tony Stark. What happens that night opens both their eyes.  
> Word Count: 3444

“Rhodeeeyyy!” Tony whined when he came into the living room and found his roommate still flopped on the couch and still in his ROTC uniform. “We’re gonna be late to the party! And you aren’t even ready!”

“I just got through rappelling down the side of the tallest building on campus,” Jim mumbled into a worn throw pillow. “Maybe I left all my party energy there.” He pushed himself half upright. Tony was decked out in a shiny club shirt of electric blue snakeskin print, unbuttoned halfway to his belly button, pants so tight they more than hinted at things Jim tried not to think about, and grey boots with high Cuban heels. “Go on without me. Or better yet, weren’t you bitching about a materials science exam you got tomorrow afternoon? Let’s crack a couple of beers, knock off the last of that cold fried chicken mama sent down, you do a little review and I’ll do a little—ow—recuperation. I got early classes in the morning.”

Tony gave him the most disapproving look a seventeen-year-old could manage. “I think some dancing will work your sore muscles out better. You lay around like an old man, you’ll get stiff. Not that getting stiff is—Scratch that. Disregard. I need to dance!” He struck a typically dramatic pose and spun around. “And drink, and flirt. I need a new girlfriend, you know. Or boyfriend. Whichever finds me first.” 

Jim sighed. “You don’t need another of either,” he said, even knowing this argument was as much a losing battle as it had been every other time Tony had gotten his underage heart broken in the time they had been roomies. Every crush, every breakup, Jim had nursed him through; intercepted every older student hitting on Tony, tried to vet them, then invariably had to pick up the pieces when Tony found out it was the Stark name or the Stark money they were interested in, not the little, wild, big-hearted genius himself. “It hasn’t been that long since you and Sunny broke up. It’s entirely possible to be happy and single at the same time, okay?” The look of disapproval morphed into a pout. “You’re gonna trip over your lower lip, at this rate.” 

“Well, I need to make more friends. As Howard delights in reminding me, networking never starts too early, and I’ll need to make my own connections in business, industry, science, et cetera et cetera, yada yada, as I take over SI, since ‘he doesn’t intend to work till he drops’,” Tony finished by dropping his voice into a gruff register apparently meant to mock the father Jim had yet to meet and doubted he really wanted to.

Jim hauled himself to his feet. “Okay, fine. If you’re in this kind of mood, guess I need to go protect you from yourself. Hang on, lemme jump in the shower and throw something on.” 

When he was almost to the bathroom, Tony called, “Rhodey?” Jim turned with expectation, hoping to hear he had changed his mind, and he did stand with his mouth open for a second, in his party clothes that made him look like a kid playing dress-up. Then he shook his head. “Nothing. never mind. Go on, shoo, you’re gonna make us late and all the good booze’ll be gone.”

It didn’t help, Jim reproached himself while he cleaned up and changed, that even though he really was tired, he’d rather stay home with Tony, because…he’d just rather be with him. The last thing anybody needed to know was that Jim might have a bit of a thing for Tony, least of all Tony himself. The brains and snarky humor, huge eyes that could narrow and sharpen, or go all soft and sweet; and hidden behind the wiseass smart talk, a heart bigger than a Super Galaxy transport plane. 

One of Tony’s few relationships that hadn’t crashed and burned was with a girl named Ginny who worked in the registrar’s office; they had quit dating when she fell hard for a Russian exchange student named Natasha, but become the best of friends, something Tony had all too few of. She also, Jim had discovered by accident when he came back to the dorm unexpectedly one day to find Tony with purloined printouts from Student Financial Services spread all over the floor, was slipping him confidential information about MIT students who were having issues with their tuition payments. “What?” Tony had demanded when Jim had a full-on arm-waving conniption fit to rival the best ones his dad had had in his day. “I can help them out. They’re never gonna know. I’m not telling anybody anything. Including you!” he hissed and hunched protectively over the papers like a tiny ferocious dragon over its hoard.

When Jim reined in his shock long enough to coax the truth out, sure enough, he learned that most of the money Howard Stark had put in a bank account for Tony’s school expenses was going to paying off debts for fellow students. Other than Jim, and the girl in the registrar’s office, nobody had a clue. It made the snide comments people made behind Tony’s back about him living off his daddy’s blood money infuriate Jim all the more, but he was sworn to secrecy; there was nothing he could do other than go to bat for Tony every chance he got. 

Tony’s utter bafflement at the thought that anybody who had his wealth wouldn’t do what he was doing was yet another trait that made Jim lov—well, like him. Like him a lot. The wishing-I-could-date-him kind of ‘liking a lot’. The wishing-I-could-stay-home-with-him-and-just-be-together kind. Unfortunately, besides the ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ bullshit that meant a bisexual fellow had to deny half of who he was in order to serve his country (and get a chance to fly, and dammit, Jim needed to fly, like he needed air), there was the little problem of Tony being _seventeen years old_ , and in Jim’s opinion too damn young to be dating anybody. Not that he had a say. If he was brutally honest, the only course of action open to his stupid pining ass was to try to make sure Tony didn’t drink himself into the ground before he was even legal to do so.

Toward that end, Jim put on his favorite parachute pants and a tie-dye T, tossed a little moisture into his curl, and headed for the door. Tony was already waiting in his car, cool shades firmly in place, until he lowered them to give Jim a judgemental once-over. Jim glared back defiantly. “If you’re gonna force me to go out, you aren’t gonna force me to dress up.”

With a hostile little huff, Tony pulled his sunglasses back up and started the car. Jim was glad he hadn’t insisted on them walking, even though the Pikes’ frat house wasn’t far, and he took careful note of which pocket Tony crammed his keys into when they arrived. He had a feeling he would need that intel before the night was out. 

The house was jamming and the alcohol flowed like the Charles River. Jim thought darkly that they were probably all technically contributing to the delinquency of a minor, if Tony’s parents had cared, which they apparently didn’t. The guy was just two months away from being street legal, though, and Jim couldn’t very well be his surrogate mamma, so he told himself to let that shit go. 

Over the vat of springwater, he ran into two girls he recognized from ROTC, fell into conversation, and found they were both almost as passionate about planes as he was. It wasn’t going to be easy for them, being female, to get any farther than flight training, if they were lucky; but both Carol and Maria were sharp as tacks and had the Look, the one that said they would do whatever it took to get into the skies, the same one he probably had himself. (They also had a certain look when they looked at each other, that would add yet another layer of difficulty to their plans, if anybody noticed. Jim resolutely ignored it.)

He tried to keep Tony in his line of sight, but between being drawn deep into talk with Carol and Maria, and Tony’s apparent determination to get completely polluted, that got harder as the evening went on. While the girls joshed back and forth, he glanced around, making an effort to seem casual and not distracted. It didn’t work. “You looking for something in particular, Rhodes?” Maria teased.

“Ah…” Jim grimaced in embarrassment. “My roommate. He, um, tends to get into trouble if not supervised. Little scrap of a guy, probably giggling.” With that description in hand, they helped scan the main floor where the bulk of the partygoers were, but didn’t spot him. The last time Jim remembered seeing Tony, he had been clutching a plastic cup with one hand and a slim dark-skinned boy with the other. He lost his search party when karaoke started up and Carol dragged her girlfriend that way, but kept quartering the room and looking. 

Finally, when he paused in a hallway to regroup, he caught a snatch of a high, slurred voice that might be Tony’s, and followed it to a closed door. “Wh’t’re you doin’, y’re not him…”

“That doesn’t matter,” a female voice replied, sounding nearly as sloppy. “We’re gonna make you feel so good, whoever he is, you won’t even care.”

“No chance’a that…always gonna care…” That was definitely Tony, and before Jim could make a conscious decision he was opening the door and stepping through. It was a typically wrecked frat brother’s room, and sprawled across the bed was Tony, his slick shiny shirt completely unbuttoned. The guy he’d been flirting with earlier stood beside the bed staring at Jim, with both his mouth and his fly hanging open, and a girl crouched on the mattress, one hand starting down Tony’s pants and her boobs almost hanging out of her sparkly tube top. They all just looked at each other, like they were frozen by some sci-fi ray out of one of the bad old movies Tony adored, until the person in question flailed around a little, raised his head and spied Jim. “Rhodeeeey! Rhodey, there y’are. See, what’d I tell ya? C’mon, boo-bear, come join th’ real party...” 

He slapped the bed beside him, or tried to, though it was really more of a flop of his arm, and something in the back of Jim’s head snapped, like a rubber band stretched beyond its limits. “The only party we’re spending any more time at is at home,” he snarled and crossed the small room in three strides.

The guy, who looked half wasted himself, attempted to block Jim. “Knock it off, spoilsport. You’re shit outta luck, we got to him first, even though you’re clearly his type, he already said yes—”

“And I’m saying two words, after which I expect you and Miss Thing to step aside and mind your own asses.” Jim leaned in close enough to smell the sweet of hunch punch on the other boy’s breath, and hissed, “ _Statutory rape.”_

The guy gulped and shot a suddenly fearful glance toward the bed, where his lady friend, obviously sharper and/or more sober than he, was already clambering to the floor. “The fuck?” she sputtered. “Pretty boy there didn’t say nothin’ about bein’ underage, bro, hand to God.”

“Then it’s a good thing I happened by when I did, isn’t it?” Jim said, his voice still low in hopes Tony wouldn’t hear and be embarrassed later. “Before word got around, and you got yourselves in a world of trouble.”

“Damn straight,” she said with a decent approximation of a firm nod. “Nobody’s gonna hear about this from us, for sure. Come _on,_ Carl.” She grabbed the elbow of the guy, who was still fumbling to tuck his junk back in his britches, and towed him out the door.

Tony lay still for a moment, then squirmed halfway to sitting and squinted after the hasty retreat. “Heeey,” he mumbled. “Where they goin’?”

“They had someplace else to be,” Jim said and offered his hand. “Can you even walk? Do you really have to tie one on so hard every damn time, Tones?”

“Makes it all hurt less,” he mumbled. “And he…looked like you, a li’l bit, and I know, I won’t ever get you, so, y’know, reasonable facsimile’s m’ next best option.”

Jim froze again. “What…Tony? You never said anything about…that.”

“Course I didn’t, honeybear. ‘M never gonna put you in a spot like that. Sayin’ no’s th’ right thing t’do, but you’d feel bad, I know you, you’re too good.” He flapped both arms this time for emphasis. “An’ you wanna fly, so bad, an’ you’ve worked so hard, ‘m not…gonna letcha risk that for anything, let alone me.” He drew a shaky breath that came out as a half-sob, followed by a string of hiccups and a feeble chortle.

With a silent prayer of thanks for his foresight, Jim located the car keys and navigated his wobbly roommate outside. He was equally thankful Tony seemed to nod off almost as soon as he got him in the seat, since Jim had not that first damn clue what to say in response to the confession he had just heard. Once they got back to their apartment, though, Jim was not quite so thankful—as much as he denied it, he wasn’t that much bigger or taller than Tony, who was now out like a light and snoring softly. How the hell he was going to wrestle him into the building, onto the elevator, and up to their crib, he had no idea. 

As he stood at the passenger door debating his options, a big figure approached. It was a guy who lived on their floor. “Hey, Harold,” he said.

“Hey, Jim. Roomie tapped out on ya?”

“Yeah. Little too much to drink. Haven’t opened the door yet, ‘cause I figure he’ll ooze out like liquid, and I’m not sure I can get him inside.”

Tony stirred at the new voice. “Heeeyy, Happy!” he greeted their neighbor.

“I didn’t even know he knew you,” Jim said to Harold. “And ‘Happy’?”

“He’s a teachin’ assistant in one’a my classes,” Tony managed. “Call ‘im Happy ‘cause he’s always, y’know, happy. Hee!”

“I am not always happy,” Harold said under his breath, but smiled as he did. “Here, bud,” he directed to Tony, “lemme give you a hand so you don’t throw ya boy’s back out.”

He scooped Tony bodily up, Jim hurried ahead to open the building door, and they toted their goofy load in. “I’d swoon if you were my type, Happy,” Tony snickered.

“What is your type, Tony?” the other guy chuckled. Jim tensed despite his best efforts, half afraid of what Tony might say. 

Tony just looked over at him from under eyelids already drooping again, grinned, and appeared to doze off once more, but roused while Jim was unlocking the apartment door. “Happy, y’ever get y’r tuition thing straight?”

Harold looked surprised. ”Yeah, I did. Got an anonymous grant, in fact!”

“Good, good. Y’r so good ‘splaining to y’r students, bet you make a great teacher someday.”

“Long as it’s not little kids,” Harold grunted and deposited Tony on the couch. “Thanks for asking though.”

Jim thanked Harold, closed the door behind him, and checked in on Tony, who was dead to the world yet again. He did not try to rouse him; this was no time to talk about anything as consequential as feelings, or even try to navigate Tony into his own bed. Jim settled for pulling one of his mama’s afghans over the small snoring form, before he cleaned up and turned in himself. It was a good while, in spite of his fatigue, before sleep took him.

In the morning, Jim hauled himself out and made it to his early class, moving as quietly as he could and leaving the snoozing lump on the couch. As soon as dismissed, he hurried back to check, and found Tony at the kitchen table hunched over a cup of coffee, looking, as his mama liked to say, like death eating a soda cracker. He wasn’t actually eating anything, though, so Jim made toast and eggs, and persuaded Tony to attempt to get some down. For a few minutes, Jim talked about nothing at all, in hopes Tony might turn the conversation. When it became clear he wasn’t about to, Jim figuratively threw up his hands. “Okay, listen, about last night.”

“What about it?” Tony grunted. “It's a pleasant blur. Hope I didn’t embarrass you too much.” 

He was lying, and Jim knew it; the slight startle and brief widening of his already huge eyes gave him away. “Not that blurry. I can read you pretty well by now.” He could, but it frankly hurt to see the relative ease with which Tony could tuck away his feelings. ‘I’m not convinced you were as drunk as you let on.”

Tony sighed. “I’m rarely as drunk as I act. I like to drink, yeah, and not think about—stuff, but at the same time I can’t lose all control. Too many people want to take advantage of me.”

That hurt to hear too. “You know I’m never gonna do that, Tones. You don’t have to hide from me for fear of that, ever.”

“I know!” Tony immediately replied. “I know. With you it’s more, like I said last night, I don’t want to hurt you, and I…I shouldn’t have blabbed. It’s okay you don’t like me that way, honestly, it is. I’m fine.”

“I’m old enough to make my own decisions,” Jim shot back. “You’re an infant though.”

Tony gasped. “Listen to you. I’m appalled and horrified at your abusive treatment of me.”

Jim smothered a snort, then reached across their plates and put his hand over Tony’s, pressed against the fading warmth of the coffee mug. “You really don’t need to be messing around with anybody till you’re legal, seriously, and no, I’m not trying to be your mama, I’m trying to be what I am, your friend. I know you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do, and all I can do is be here for you. But—” he took a deep breath, “you mean a lot to me, Tones, more than you know; and you’ll be eighteen in a couple months. If you still feel the same about me then…I’ve been feeling that way about you for a good while. Yes, we’d have to keep it on the downlow, but yes, I would love to date you.” For a kid who probably grew up with every material thing anybody could ever want, Tony looked like he had just been given the greatest gift imaginable. They came up from their chairs in near-unison, and leaned across the table into a gentle kiss. “I know you're not very good at the whole delayed gratification thing, but—”

“I can be,” Tony interrupted. “I—I love that you know me well enough to know that waiting’s hard for me. It’s scary as fuck that somebody knows me that well, admittedly, but…it’s you, so it’s okay.” Jim nearly melted. “It’s not like it’s forever, or ‘maybe possibly someday’. There’s a date, out there, a goal, and I can see it, so I can get to it, I can. Can we still be friends though?” He sounded so young and uncertain, all of a sudden. “Because I’d love to have you as my boyfriend, yeah, but if I had to choose only one, I’d choose you as a friend over that, every time. That’s why I wasn’t gonna say anything. Well, one reason why. I don’t want to lose you from my life altogether, if you decide dating me is too much trouble—"

“Hush,” Jim reassured him as they cleared the kitchen (yes, _they_ ; for once, Tony was helping) and settled on the sofa. “Yeah, always friends, whatever else happens or doesn’t. We may decide we’re better that way, and that’s cool. But I figure we owe it to ourselves to give this relationship thing a spin, huh? A test flight?”

Tony nodded eagerly and snuggled into his arms. Jim wasn’t naïve enough to think one conversation would settle everything in their lives, but it was certainly enough to let them sketch out a flight plan, and see where that took them. For his part, his heart was soaring.

**Author's Note:**

> In the US, the cutoff age at which underage sex is considered illegal varies from state to state. For purposes of this story, it’s someone over eighteen having sex with someone under eighteen, even if the minor consents. I didn't use the Underage warning, since nothing inappropriate actually happens to or with Tony. The Dubious Consent tag is due to a combination of his age, the alcohol, and the pining.


End file.
